There is a cool comparison of bilingualism to a bicycle.
On a monocycle, which is a "cycle" with one wheel
you can get there, right? If you pick a destination
then you can slowly reach it.
You can also get there on a bicycle with one wheel smaller than the other
but let's be real. The fastest and the most convenient way
to reach your destination is on a bicycle with two wheels of the same size.
Right now we are in Philadelphia in a quite special location because we are facing
a house where Tadeusz Kościuszko lived during his second visit to America.
As most probably know Tadeusz Kościuszko is
a well known, very important figure in the history of Poland but also
in the history of America because
he fought for independence of these two quite far from each other countries.
That would be why he is being called "a hero of two nations".
He is a hero of the future.
We know that he was successful in America thanks to all his skills but also because
of his excellent knowledge of English. He was bilingual.
Bilingualism is exactly something that I would like to address today.
Today the young generations have a chance to be
the heroes of our times, the ambassadors of Polishness.
Young generations of Poles born abroad.
Just like for example your son here, Alexander
who was born here in USA, which means he is American
Yes, he is American and he is...
but answering the question "which language do you prefer" he answered that he prefers...
Kto to jest?
This is my younger son.
And he can introduce himself.
Good Morning.
Good Morning! What's your name?
Alexander.
I'm David, hi!
To jest Blonnie.
Jesteś dwujęzyczny?
Na to wygląda.
W jakim języku się lepiej mówi? Po Polsku czy po Angielsku?
Po Polsku.
Dlaczego?
Łatwiej się wymawia.
Łatwiej się wymawia niż Angielski? Jesteś pewien?
Tak.
So this is worth a praise. The national pride is growing.
Yes, that just means that with his mother's blood he also inherited the Polish language.
Alexander tell me, your brother is older or younger than you?
He's older.
And he also speaks Polish so well?
Yes.
And when you talk to your brother, when you guys talk to each other is that in Polish or in English?
Sometimes in Polish, sometimes in English.
And what does that depend on?
Just whatever you feel like?
Yes.
It's not like for example when you talk sports you speak English
and when you talk about...
I don't know what about... food - then you speak Polish?
It's not like that?
Sometimes.
And so we met today because of the oncoming Polish Day of Bilingualism
which we celebrate on every third week of October.
The Polish Bilingual Day is a celebration of Polish immigrants
that is directed to Poles all around the world.
The idea and execution comes from the New York internet site
and foundation Good Polish School.
This year we'll be celebrating the Polish Bilingual Day for the fourth time.
The main idea of this day is promoting learning Polish language
and supporting bilingualism in Polish immigrant families.
Standing here today I would like to invite everyone to celebrating, to spending
this day among Polish immigrants. Do it in order to
play with Polish language and to show it is
important and precious to us, parents
but most of all to our children.
I would like to invite everybody to the website created especially for the Polish Bilingual Day
http://polishbilingualday.com
where you can find materials
to help you celebrate this day.
To spend it in an attractive and interesting way at Polish immigrant schools.
Tak ten budynek wyglądał?
Tak, tak wyglądał przed renowacją.
Cegła jest nadal taka sama. Tylko ją wyczyścili?
Tak. W środku było wiele zmian.
Było dużo renowacji, głównie na górze. To wszystko pochodzi z XVIII wieku.
A no to fajnie.
Potrafisz poprawnie wypowiedzieć jego nazwisko?
Mogę spróbować.
Koziusko?
Kościuszko.
Ja go nazywam "Thad"
One of my most difficult things to jump over
is translation of dialects. For example
How do you translate a joke made in Silesian?
To an English speaker?
This is something that's impossible to reflect in translation.
Why is Silesian dialect funny to us, Poles?
Funny, entertaining, whatever you call it.
Not to offend anyone, of course.
I am myself from Silesia so I'd have to be offending myself. Nevermind.
It is funny because it's a slightly different accent, right? Do you agree with that?
But it also has a lot of words that come straight from German
and those are Polonized to a bigger or smaller extent.
And when you mix all that together then just
it becomes a comedy, often.
It does sound funny, sometimes.
So how do you translate, how do you reflect in translation
the fact that someone said something in Polish but they said it in Silesian.
In that case the only thing I think you can do is
some sort of a comparison. "Imagine" as I tell her for example
"that someone said this sentence but with some"
"let's say southern accent and a funny tone to it".
This is something very hard to translate for me.
This is difficult and what you mentioned here is first of all
maybe not a problem but a challenge
facing translators more than anyone else.
Because the work of a translator is
not to translate things word by word
from one language to another
but to reflect the concept and the meaning.
We experience similar situations when
we try to translate idioms.
They also cannot be translated literally.
People who learn languages
our kids, also when they use both English and Polish
they are already noticing that certain things
presented by idioms sound very different
in English and very different in Polish.
Those things just can't be translated literally.
We have to have here, we have to use...
something like a paraphrase or...
Find the best equivalent.
Yes, some sort of an equivalent, description to really get the meaning out.
An example that I can think of is...
In Polish for example we say that something is as easy an a roll with butter.
While in English we have to say that
Well... it just wouldn't make sense translated literally
but we have something similar in English, an expression "piece of cake".
Albo można powiedzieć "to jest proste jak placek".
O! Poważnie? Nawet nie wiedziałem.
A ty dlaczego tutaj dzisiaj jesteś?
Piszę pracę na jego temat na moich studiach.
Tak? O tym konkretnym miejscu? Dlaczego?
Studiuję na magistra z edukacji muzealnej.
Wybrałam taki kierunek bo mam Polskie pochodzenie.
Również inne miejsca wymagały jazdy samochodem, a nie mam samochodu.
Chcesz być w naszym filmie?
Co?
Robimy dzisiaj film na temat dwujęzyczności.
No pewnie.
Mówisz cokolwiek po Polsku?
Nie.
On jest tak właściwie z Polski, ona też jest z Polski. My właśnie wróciliśmy z Polski.
To jak jest z tym Polskim pochodzeniem?
Moi dziadkowie wyemigrowali z Polski.
Chociaż mówili więcej po Ukraińsku niż po Polsku.
Byli z południa?
Tak, byli z południowej Polski.
Wiesz, granice się wtedy dużo przesuwały.
My właśnie odwiedziliśmy okolice zaraz obok granicy.
Czyli Twoi dziadkowie nie nauczyli Cię w ogóle Polskiego? Nawet...
Byli dość starzy jak ja się urodziłam. Mój dziadek zmarł w wieku 95 lat jak byłam w 5 klasie.
I twoi rodzice nie mówili po Polsku?
Nie.
Interesuje mnie w jaki sposób
się to dzieje, że język w pewnym pokoleniu zanika?
Dzieci moich dziadków były już urodzone w momencie jak się tutaj dostali.
Moi dziadkowie nie spotkali się tak właściwie w Polsce. Spotkali się w Austrii.
Podczas wojny, a zatem
obydwoje znaleźli się na obczyźnie w Austrii i zdali sobie sprawę, że są z tych samych okolic.
To było zanim się zeszli.
Czyli zanim przenieśli się do Ameryki mieli już dwójkę dzieci.
A jak dostali się tutaj wszyscy próbowali się dostosować do Amerykańskiej kultury.
Co za tym idzie nacisk kładło się na naukę Angielskiego i na to, żeby chłopcy dobrze radzili sobie w szkole.
Świetnie. Jak się nazywasz?
Jestem Molly Walenski.
Ja jestem David.
Miło Cię poznać.
Woleński to zdecydowanie...
Walenski!
Oryginalnie - zgaduję - było Woleński.
I to zdecydowanie bardzo Polskie nazwisko.
Miło Cię poznać! Będziesz na naszym vlogu!
O super! Dzięki!
Nazywa się We Are Going Somewhere.
Super, napewno zajrzę!
I think that just knowing the language is not much
because it is very worth it to know what you are describing.
It's beneficial to see and get to know things we are relating to when speaking a language.
Connecting language learning
with travel always brings the ultimate results.
Then you are really benefitting in the best possible way.
Only then we have both the language and the culture
which is something that just really contributes to a wholesome experience.
Can you tell us how long you have been in USA?
How long? 14 years.
I work as a Polish immigrant teacher
in a Polish school. Right now at the Academy of Polish Language in Manchester, NJ.
I am also a mother of bilingual children.
My work is my passion. I really like teaching
Polish language, history and geography.
I've been working at a Polish school for over 10 years.
I usually work with teenagers so kids who
basically come to the school not really because their parents want them to but because
it is their conscious choice. At their stage
they are aware of the benefits that come with being bilingual.
They want to use those benefits and deepen their knowledge
not only of Polish language and literature but also history
history and geography.
So Polish language is a difficult one to learn but as we can see one can learn it quite well.
Especially when it comes to our bilingual children who
are born here and listen to both English and Polish languages.
Because they hear Polish language in their homes and they SHOULD be hearing it.
This is why... that's the reason why we established the Polish Bilingual Day.
To promote learning of Polish language, to not give up on it.
To support the bilingualism that - we have to admit -
is not easy, right? It is a challenge.
We say that our children are lucky because they are born in a country...
For example here in America
where they have a chance to be bilingual.
But this isn't just coming without any effort.
This requires a lot of work on the part of the parents
as well as on the part of the teachers.
We have to keep talking to children in our language.
They have to write, read and have conversations.
It would be best if they could also visit Poland.
And speak to their family over there in Polish.
Then you really have a chance to maintain the bilingualism.
Very often we say that our children were gifted the bilingualism.
It isn't really gifted, it's a homework.
And that homework we have to...
And then it is nurtured.
Yes, we have to nurture it and we have to keep getting the homework done.
Every single day to maintain the bilingualism.
But this is beautiful. I think that parents
if they are proud that their children speak English
they can be equally proud that their children speak the parents' mother tongue, too.
In Polish. This is the beauty of it and I think we should be taking care of it.
We should have that in mind going forward with our kids' upbringing. Make sure they are bilingual.
So they can freely speak English and Polish or Polish and German
As I said before this broadens your horizons and opens doors.
There's a cool comparison of bilingualism to a bicycle.
The fastest and most comfortable way of reaching your destination
is on a bicycle with two wheels of the same size.
That means the two languages. Bilingualism, which means the ability
of using two languages to more or less the same extent.
We said already that there are lots and lots of benefits.
We are using these arguments to convince those still unconvinced.
But as I said before if all the cognitive, economic, health benefits did not exist
one, most important one still remains and that is the emotional benefit.
It is the emotional connection we are able to create
when using our native language.
Now tell me the raspy voice is especially for today to sound more sexy or is it always like that?
Justyna requested this meeting yesterday evening.
She thought, I have the raspy voice - we need to shoot now!
Not true, no. We've been working on making this happen for three weeks now. Maybe more.